To help construct our ideas for our solo performance, we began thinking about how we would shape our performance space. We were given an automatic writing task with a template as follows:
Lights go black
Empty Chair in the corner
Spotlight from the side
A voice is heard
In the session we had to begin writing with no previous thoughts as to what we were going to include. Immediately I thought about the chair and this is what I wrote:
Script – Click on to retrieve script
This piece of script bares no relation to what I will be doing, but what it did do was make me consider the atmosphere I would like to create in my performance. I began adding in lighting, sound and position of props to my script when prompted to think about the atmosphere I wanted to create. The spotlights crossed to show a sense of two places that could not meet and the busy chattering sounds mimicked that of a busy tram.
What also interested me was a reading we did on Amy Taubin. Her work “…focuses on the relationship between the performer and the audience, turning naturally to the solo where this relation exists in an especially concentrated state” (Carrol, 1979, 52). This comes back to the point that it is important to consider audience, because like Thom Pain, being alone in the performance space means what you are doing is being scrutinised by every audience member.
In her piece Pimping for Herself (1975) Taubin obstructs the vision of the audience by taking her clothes off, but only showing part of herself on a camera. The audience are not given the chance to see all of her. Obstructing their view is attending the audience in a way that “…makes each spectator, in turn, an object of her attention” (Carrol, 1979, 52). Taubin chooses to restrict their view. This is therefore creating an atmosphere of frustration, allowing the audience to pick up on Taubin’s messages about the female body being an object. This is where atmosphere becomes important when considering how to shape performance space.
Works Cited
Carrol, N. (1979) Amy Taubin: The Solo Self. The Drama Review: TDR, 23 (1) 51-58.